Note: I decided to begin a new story that is relatively much happier than my last one. Sorry everyone for the ending on the last story, I just felt that it'd be a interesting twist? Hopefully this story will make up for it! Enjoy ^_^
The sweat dropped off her head as she concentrated at the task at hand. The man's cracked rib was poking out of his stomach, tearing a large hole where the blood continued dripping. Pushing her bangs back, Sakura pressed her hands onto the last major wound on the ninja, and allowed her chakra to begin patching him up. The medic that shadowed her watched in awe as the muscle cells began to painfully sew up, pushing the bone back while healing it at the same time. The ninja managed to crack a smile at Sakura with his dried out lips, and whispered, "thank you," before losing consciousness. Finally done with her job, Sakura wiped the sweat from her brow and walked out of the room to sit on the nearest chair she could find.
"Good work, Sakura," Tsunade passed by her. "We'll have training tomorrow, so go straight to the training grounds tomorrow," and with a wave, she was gone. Sakura took it as a signal that her seemingly endless shift was finally over. Groaning, she put her hands on her knees and pushed herself up and began her way to her office. Throughout the ears, Sakura had become an amazing medic, only surpassed by Tsunade and Shizune themselves. Along with her medic abilities, Sakura had learned to be an incredible ninja, and hoped to join Anbu. She kept her pink hair shoulder length, just long enough to tie it up. While she was annoying, weak, and self-absorbed as a child, she was funny, powerful, and efficient as an adult.
Before leaving the hospital, Sakura grabbed a granola bar from the cafeteria and headed out to the training grounds.
The sun was beating on her shoulders relentlessly, but she enjoyed every moment of it. Without hesitation, Sakura began to set up targets to practice on and happily kept herself busy and her mind occupied by this redundant task. She then stood yards away and flung her kunai at each of them, hitting the targets dead on. It was simple practice really, it kept her busy until her sparring partner reached the grounds, but as always he was late. She smirked when she felt the familiar chakra presence behind her and immediately twirled around to fling three shruiken at him.
Kakashi took a step left, barely dodging the deadly objects. "What if it wasn't me?" he complained. They both smiled, knowing that Sakura had grown to recognize his chakra and would never make a mistake like that. He closed his book with a snap, and readied himself. She never gave him a moment notice before going at him with all the strength she had learned from Tsunade.
She threw a kick at his face, which he managed to block, but in doing so he was hit in the stomach by a quick punch. Grimacing, Kakashi stepped back in order to revert to the defensive and block the young kunoichi's attacks. Grabbing her arm, he twisted so they both fell to the ground, and used it to his advantage. Sakura snarled as Kakashi pinned her down by the shirt with a kunai, and before she could get up, he had a kunai to her neck.
These daily spars had started when Sakura found Kakashi on the training grounds on a day similar to this one. She had been all smiles, butterflies, and unicorns. He wouldn't have been surprised if she began to barf rainbows out in front of him. "Kakashi-sensei, I'm a jounin now!" He could tell that she had been running from the way she was out of breath in front of him. Smiling, he let his eye crinkle into a smile before congratulating himself. "Get ready," he told her before assuming a fighting stance. She stared with wide eyes and had a split second before he began a close range attack upon her.
Attack after attack, Kakashi felt a pain inside his chest that had nothing to do with the fact that she was keeping up with his attacks. He couldn't help the pity that crept into his soul as he realized that she had grown up right before his eyes without his noticing. Kakashi couldn't deny the fact that he had always given his attention to the boys, and always left Sakura alone. Even when they all went their own ways, he had never really bothered keeping in contact with her, and here she was. She had run all this way to find him to gloat about her latest achievement. Him, her former teacher that had all but abandoned her as a genin and a chuunin… when she needed him the most. Disgusted, Kakashi finally let up and masked his disappointment with a cheerful smile.
"Wow, Sakura. You've gotten a lot better, I'm proud of you. How about I treat you to some lunch or dinner sometime?" His voice barely concealed his turmoil of emotions. He felt the pain in his chest again as she brightly smiled up at him. "Ah, Kaka-sensei! You're the best you know that? Can Naruto and Sasuke come too?" she was excited at the prospect of being with her former team again.
Ever since Sasuke had returned after defeating his brother, Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke remained close friends. Her previous obsession had turned into a friendly affection that never went away.
When Sakura turned away to make her way back to her home, Kakashi closed his eyes. 'They're all grown up now, Kakashi… even Sakura,' he felt a pang of nostalgia as he reminisced about Team 7. They had all gone through so much together. He could hardly believe that they weren't kids anymore, especially Naruto. Now that he thought of it, Naruto hadn't changed much.
Since that day, Kakashi found himself looking for the kunoichi to shower on her the affection and attention that he had never given her before. He would almost always find her at the training grounds working hard to become even better than she was the previous day. At first, he had asked her politely if he could spar with her, and gave her pointers through out the day. Their interactions had been more or less awkward. Uneasiness spread from years of no communication between the two. Gradually, they found themselves feeling more at ease, and he found her at the training ground every day, waiting for him. While he had asked her to join before, he now found it that she would begin sparring with him as soon as he stepped within six yards of her.
She was sitting across from him, pouting, because she had lost that spar, and rather quickly too. Her pout disappeared as she began laughing and reached her hand over to pick out a pebble that had made its way into his hair. "Damn, every time I think I can finally win against you, you always pull through," she complained. "For an old man, you're kind of fast," Sakura laughed again when she saw Kakashi's visible brow furrow a little at the low-handed insult. Picking up the pebble that she had picked out, Kakashi threw it back at her. "I'm not even that old. It's not my fault you're still a baby," if he didn't have his mask in place, Kakashi would have stuck his tongue out. Sakura burst out laughing, clutching her sides as tears sprang into her eyes. "You're right, but it looks like you're still a baby too," she stuck out her tongue.
Out of breath from their small spar, the two ninja sat under the shade of a nearby tree. Kakashi took out his trademark Icha Icha book while Sakura sat behind him, leaning on him for support. She tipped her head back and let out a breath of relief before smiling. "I spy something green," she said while drumming her fingers against the hard ground.
"Green? The trees," Kakashi replied, never taking his eyes off of the page.
"Nope! You gotta think of better guesses!" Sakura began tracing lightly into the dirt.
"The grass?" He was beginning to realize the futility of guessing something that had a green color. He wasn't sure if she knew that they were sitting near a damn forest.
"Man, you're really bad at this today, huh?" Sakura snorted and tipped her head back onto his shoulder.
"Sakura…you do understand that almost everything around us is green, right?" Kakashi finally looked up from his book and peered sideways at her face.
Without even opening her eyes, Sakura lifted her hand and pointed forwards. He sighed and turned at an awkward angle to see what she was pointing out. When he figured it out, he wished that he had continued to guess every other plant near by the two of them.
"Oh ho ho! My eternal rival! What brings you here with the ultimate beauty of youth?" Gai was practically dancing around them in his lovely green spandex suit.
"What do you want," Kakashi bit out. He began looking around for an escape route, though it probably meant an ass whooping from Sakura later.
"I wish to have you join me and our companions as we share a few drinks tonight! I shall allow you to bring the beautiful flower to accompany you!" Gai smiled and gave the two of them a thumb up. Sakura bit back a frown, but kept her eyes closed.
"No, I don't want to drink tonight," Kakashi closed his eyes in frustration.
"What are you implying?" Gai's eyebrows sprang up and his eyes glinted as he sensed a battle.
"You can't drink more than I can. We already went through this before, Gai," Kakashi muttered before beginning to flex his muscles to make his getaway.
"Oh no you don't…." Sakura's fingers found his and grabbed a hold of it, preventing him from making the necessary seals.
"CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!" Gai began prancing around him while creating the rules of the bet. Kakashi let out a frustrated groan and knocked his head against Sakura's hard in retaliation. Pouting, he leaned forward suddenly so she fell back with a shriek.
"What are you? Five?" Sakura mildly stared in his direction and chuckled as she saw the form of a pout outlined on his mask.
"Tonight at 7 P.M.! I will see you soon!" and with those words, Gai had bounded off. Sakura settled down again, and spread herself out on the ground, absorbing the sunlight. She could feel the heat from Kakashi's glare as well as the sun, and it was beginning to make her drowsy. Before she knew it, she had fallen asleep.
Kakashi stared at her in disbelief as Sakura began to snore quietly. 'I can't believe she fell asleep,' he continued burning holes through her with his eyes. Scooting closer, Kakashi felt his lips pull down into a frown as he saw the dark bags that had formed on Sakura's face. He realized what had caused her to lose the spar so easily and cursed himself for being so unobservant. She looked as if she hadn't had a decent night of sleep in a few days. Of course Kakashi felt bad for her, she was completely, utterly exhausted. However, that did not stop him from getting his revenge on her. He stood up and walked to the stream of water that ran close by where they sparred. Scooping up a handful of mud, Kakashi cheerfully made his way back to the sleeping kunoichi.
'Lesson one: Always be alert!' Kakashi's visible eye crinkled as he smiled to himself before beginning his revenge. He held the mud in his left hand and dipped his right index finger into it. Using his finger as a paintbrush, Kakashi drew a line connecting Sakura's eyebrows. Sakura now looked as if she had been born with a beautiful, pink and brown unibrow. He then began drawing circles on her cheeks and drew a nice little mustache complete with a goatee. The mud contrasted nicely with her light, but tanned skin. Standing up, he surveyed his work and smiled brightly. 'Maybe I should have been an artist,' Kakashi thought. He wiped his hands on the grass next to him and knelt down next to Sakura. Kakashi nearly laughed aloud as he saw the peaceful girl sleeping next to him. She was so angelic looking, no one would guess that she had a temper that matched the Hokage, and no one would ever dream that she had the same strength as her shishou either. He sat there for a few minutes, enjoying the lovely weather and the girl next to him. Finally, he decided it was time and yelled, "SAKURA, WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!" Kakashi shook her frantically and then quickly performed the seals to make his getaway.
Sakura was forced awake by Kakashi's yelling and shaking. She was going to kill him unless they were really dying. Looking around dazed, Sakura saw no one near by and groaned. She stood up unsteadily and began her way home. Her face felt heavy, but she figured it was probably because of using nearly all of here energy today. As Sakura walked through the village, she intercepted many odd stares and even blatant laughing. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, and it was then she felt something crack on her skin. Cautiously, Sakura rubbed her forehead and felt something crusty and hard. She ran to the nearest window, bewildered.
"DAMN IT. I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Sakura's face was covered in mud.